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I am a changed man because I grew a mustache
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I wanted a change — a small one. Nothing too extreme. I didn’t want to disappear into Witness Protection and reappear with a new name in a new city with a new job. I was not looking for a new beginning.
I am reasonably happy with my life. There are good days and bad days and “meh” days and days when I whisper “yes!” to myself. I think that’s pretty normal.
But I was feeling impulsive, so I gave myself a makeover. Specifically, a mustache. A ‘stache. A nostril broom. Not a waxy, old-timey barber’s mustache or the kind fussy vice-principals rock. Not a biker’s handlebar, either. Just a mustache. Simple.
People treat you differently when you have one. You look like someone who knows how to do things, like grill a burger (which I can do).
The mustache represents masculinity in all its diversity: Einstein, Twain, Groucho. Plumbers wear them. Firefighters, too. Freddy Mercury, the angel-voiced lead singer of glam rock band Queen, sported one.
(Yes, many of history’s monsters have mustaches but their crimes are not the fault of the ‘stache.)
I had a boss long ago who smoked the foulest cigars in his office, and the stench would creep into the kitchen and had a mustache shaped like a boomerang. My local deli guy has a gray mustache and makes the best chopped cheeses in Brooklyn.
Burt Reynolds wore a “Chevron”-style mustache, which is full and slopes down towards the corners of the mouth. If you don’t know him, Reynolds was a movie star in the 70s and 80s, a charming, macho rogue. His movies were never too serious, he seemed fun. I don’t think he was born of mortals — God touched a side of beef, and the side of beef smiled and winked at him.
Do you know who else had a fine mustache? Billy Dee Williams. I’m no Lando, but a man can dream.
Growing a mustache is something I was able to do with minimal effort, thanks to testosterone. I already had a salt-and-pepper beard — a wizard’s whiskers. The next step was to remove most of it, while carefully leaving enough facial hair to trim.
